Linux Terminal Services

ssrini · 07-20-2005, 11:26 AM

I have a predominantly Windows network. I have set up a FC4 server box now. In order to give people a flavour of linux and help in shifting them to Linux, I want to setup something like a Terminal Server so that the Windows clients can login and create a linux session to play around with (similar to Citrix and Windows Terminal Services)

Can anyone help in terms of what software I need and how to go about doing this ?

Thanks in advance
Srini

PS: I checked out LTSP but that seems to be more diskless clients, I am looking for windows clients to run linux terminals

traene · 07-20-2005, 11:56 AM

You can have a look at putty. It is a windows terminal emulator which supports
telnet and ssh.

putty download page

cleidh_mor · 07-20-2005, 02:12 PM

Hi traene,

If you're using KDE, you can set up Remote Desktop Connection on your Linux box and then use VNC from your Windows boxes to login remotely to the Linux box. Likewise, you can use a VNC server on your windows boxes to allow access from the Linux box, using krdc (KDE Remote Desktop Connection).

I'm sure GNOME will have an equivalent if you're not using KDE.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Cleidh Mor

crep · 07-20-2005, 03:29 PM

I agree, VNC is absolutly the way to go. Assuming its installed, just type "vncpasswd" or "vncpassword", I forget which. Type the password you want to use. Then, just type vncserver.

You can use it in Internet Explorer as a Java applet: go to http://1.2.3.4:5800

Have Fun

ssrini · 07-20-2005, 10:45 PM

Thanks for all the inputs ..

I was pointed to www.nomachine.com in another forum and seems to be exactly what I wanted .. Catch is it seems to be paid software .. Is anyone on this forum aware of any GNU versions or equivalent software ?

Regards
Srini

cleidh_mor · 07-21-2005, 01:43 AM

To be honest, that just looks like a souped up version of VNC, but I don't have time to look at it in depth. I would give VNC a go first, then if you find that you need other features, try NoMachine.

Cheers,
Cleidh Mor

ssrini · 07-21-2005, 04:59 AM

Thanks Cleidh .. I got vnc running great.

In the meantime I also came across freeNX the GNU version .. check http://freenx.berlios.de/

Will be trying this later

Regards
Srini

dbogdan · 07-21-2005, 09:42 AM

ssrini,

I've had a bit of experience with VNC and freenx, my suggestion is to use freenx. The reasons why I'd use freenx over VNC are thus:

freenx uses components of VNC and rdesktop and nomachines X encryption schemes to deliver FAR better performance than VNC alone (read the nomachine site for details). Your end-users will appreciate this.

VNC is not secure unless you tunnel thru SSH.

The nomachine NX client is much more visually pleasing (not a technical plus, but your users will probably like it better)

The only downside to freenx over VNC that I've found is an issue with full screen 'suspended' sessions from windows clients. Basically, it doesn't work. The next version of freenx promises to address this, actually the code is currently available in beta I believe.

Dave

ssrini · 07-22-2005, 01:56 AM

Thanks Dave,

I am extremely happy with FreeNX and my goal is to now roll it out for my users

Regards
Srini

cleidh_mor · 07-22-2005, 05:14 AM

If you do give FreeNX a go, please post your experiences. I might give it a go as well - it looks cool

Cheers,
Cleidh Mor

ssrini · 07-22-2005, 11:38 AM

Here goes:

I setup FreeNX on both Fedora and Ubuntu. For Fedora I used the rpms from http://fedoranews.org/contributors/rick_stout/freenx/ and installed it. Worked without any issues and got a beautiful KDE Fedora screen.

For Ubuntu, I installed it from the backports http://backports.ubuntuforums.org/, setup the sources.list and did a apt-get install freenx. That was it.

Used clients from windows. With a P4/512 RAM server, I could get >5 concurrent users running applications like NVU, Eclipse, OpenOffice without any performance issues.

This s/w is brilliant and is one of the best out there.

Regards
Srini

dbogdan · 07-22-2005, 02:23 PM

Srini,

Glad you like FreeNX, everyone that I have recommended it to has used it to ultimately replace their 'other' remote solutions.

Just an FYI, here's a little more information about bandwith useage for NX.

http://www.nomachine.com/ar/view.php?ar_id=AR12B00119

Also, If memory serves, nomachine recommended planning on using between 20-30 mg of ram per user connection. This puts the NX stuff clearly in stiff competition with Citrix.

Hard to beat the price, hard to beat the performance.

Dave

cleidh_mor · 07-23-2005, 03:40 PM

Hmm, well, I'm having a bit of a nightmare with it at the moment. I've installed it all ok using the SuSE RPMs and am trying to test it using a WinXP client. After having initial problems getting past the SSH authentication, it seems that NX won't create new sessions.

Once authenticated, I get the connection manager window up which shows a connection already in progress. It is not possible to resume this session. Initially when I tried to start a new session, the client barfed with the message

"Info: End of session requested by remote proxy."

I upped the level of logging on the server and now I get a timeout message with the following in the detail window of the client:

Code:

 NX> 203 NXSSH running with pid: 2192
NX> 285 Enabling check on switch command
NX> 285 Enabling skip of SSH config files
NX> 200 Connected to address: 192.168.8.3 on port: 22
NX> 202 Authenticating user: nx
NX> 208 Using auth method: publickey
HELLO NXSERVER - Version 1.4.0-04-CVS OS (GPL)
NX> 105 hello NXCLIENT - Version 1.5.0
NX> 134 Accepted protocol: 1.5.0
NX> 105 SET SHELL_MODE SHELL
NX> 105 SET AUTH_MODE PASSWORD
NX> 105 login
NX> 101 User: cleidh_mor
NX> 102 Password: 
NX> 103 Welcome to: ferret user: cleidh_mor
NX> 105 listsession --user="cleidh_mor" --status="suspended,running" --geometry="1024x768x32+render" --type="unix-kde"
NX> 127 Sessions list of user 'cleidh_mor'

Display Username        Remote IP       Session ID
------- --------------- --------------- --------------------------------
1000	cleidh_mor	192.168.8.6	1945AA2B1FCE07DB8D2C506C08E1EE80
1000	cleidh_mor	192.168.8.4	92526BD1F943C53242B250392E87B3C4
NX> 105 listsession --user="cleidh_mor" --status="suspended,running" --geometry="1024x768x32+render" --type="unix-kde"
NX> 127 Sessions list of user 'cleidh_mor'

Display Username        Remote IP       Session ID
------- --------------- --------------- --------------------------------
1000	cleidh_mor	192.168.8.6	1945AA2B1FCE07DB8D2C506C08E1EE80
1000	cleidh_mor	192.168.8.4	92526BD1F943C53242B250392E87B3C4
NX> 105 listsession --user="cleidh_mor" --status="suspended,running" --geometry="1024x768x32+render" --type="unix-kde"
NX> 127 Sessions list of user 'cleidh_mor'

Display Username        Remote IP       Session ID
------- --------------- --------------- --------------------------------
1000	cleidh_mor	192.168.8.6	1945AA2B1FCE07DB8D2C506C08E1EE80
1000	cleidh_mor	192.168.8.4	92526BD1F943C53242B250392E87B3C4
NX> 105 listsession --user="cleidh_mor" --status="suspended,running" --geometry="1024x768x32+render" --type="unix-kde"
NX> 127 Sessions list of user 'cleidh_mor'

Display Username        Remote IP       Session ID
------- --------------- --------------- --------------------------------
1000	cleidh_mor	192.168.8.6	1945AA2B1FCE07DB8D2C506C08E1EE80
1000	cleidh_mor	192.168.8.4	92526BD1F943C53242B250392E87B3C4
NX> 105 listsession --user="cleidh_mor" --status="suspended,running" --geometry="1024x768x32+render" --type="unix-kde"
NX> 127 Sessions list of user 'cleidh_mor'

Display Username        Remote IP       Session ID
------- --------------- --------------- --------------------------------

Don't suppose anyone's got any ideas?

tomdkat · 07-23-2005, 04:32 PM

Why connect over ssh if your clients are on a LAN?

Would a free XServer for Windows, like Wired-X and XDMCP be a viable solution?

Doesn't VNC provide console control of a remote system? I would think a XDMCP-like connection would be preferred to allow multiple simultaneous users to login as if they were each at the console and they all run in their own environments.\

I haven't played with VNC in years so I'm not familiar with its current functionality.

Peace...

ssrini · 07-23-2005, 10:42 PM

Check if this helps ..
http://www.nomachine.com/howto/terminate-session.php

Regards
Srini